Ch: 111 Being psychic doesn't mean you’re Lucky (Patreon)

Edited.

This ends this arc, but there is still a lot of fighting to go. The battle for Karma is still up in the air. Sorry for the cliff. 

Chapter 111

Being psychic doesn't mean you’re lucky

“Ten seconds to first drop.” Fred said over the radio.

Freya and the rest of her team, minus BT, edged out closer to the end of the ramp. Cannon nodded to Freya as she came up beside her. The wind whipped by them as Fred flew the dropship closer to the ground. Freya was taking Monkeyman with her while Cannon was taking Lurch on the objective. BT was staying behind. They were the only people left who had active camo. Freya was not sure if the diplomatic marines had any scouts, but on this mission the spec ops platoon was assigned the objective.

Freya took a second to look behind her while crouched down and holding on to the ramp, waiting for the order to hot drop. The dropship looked packed, but looks were deceiving. They had lost a lot of people during the last battle. The diplomatic marines had taken the biggest beating with only eleven surviving the battle. The spec ops platoon that Freya belonged to also took a huge hit with only nine members left. The rest of the survivors were militia members. Most of them weren’t here as they were still swimming towards the waystation.

Once the Ketica had fled the battlefield, the bio constructs had disappeared. The common thought was that the Ketica were using the last of them to protect itself. Mon was with the retreating militia and was in charge of them. He was the only Mech pilot that survived the battle. The Mechs had really won the battle. Their weapons systems had taken out huge amounts of fish and really turned the tide of the battle. The only problem was that, towards the end of the battle, the constructs had realized where the biggest danger was and focused on the Mechs. By the time the Ketica had fled, Mon was the only surviving pilot still fighting.

The late arrival of the militia meant that they had more survivors than the marines, who had taken the brunt of the fighting. They had dropped all over the place and it had taken them a while to regroup before they entered the battle. Still, Freya was not really mad at them. They had taken massive casualties in the short amount of time they had fought. All in all, it was an ugly battle and Freya was not sure if they had won. They got some vital intel, according to Captain Thompson, but the Ketica had escaped. The factory was gone so Freya counted that as a sort of win, but she knew they could have just marked it and let the October destroy it when the invasion started.

“Five seconds to first drop.” Fred told them.

Monkeyman walked up beside her as they waited their turn. Freya adjusted her rifles on her shoulder and took a deep breath to calm her heart rate down. She absently checked her pistol and knife to make sure everything was there and secured for the drop. She patted her belt pouches, making sure. The plan was for Freya and Monkeyman to drop first while the dropship circled around the area and dropped Cannon and Lurch off. Their mission was to find and kill all of the spy constructs in the area, which should give the Ketica a huge target to focus their attention on. So far the militia was making their way without problems, but that could change at a moment’s notice.

The plan was a big distraction so the militia could make it back to the waystation. Captain Thompson also wanted to use the time to do some repairs on the dropship. The plan was to draw the Ketica to the area then leave under active camo without fighting. Freya hoped it worked out. She had her doubts.

The spec ops platoon had taken massive casualties. Most of the survivors were from the third platoon who were now filling in for the dead. All the original squad leaders, except for Fred who was flying the dropship, were dead, along with Mother. Sergeant Kruz was in charge of the platoon, but so far Captain Thompson was making all the decisions. Freya hadn’t really spoken with Sergeant Kruz since before the battle. She had seen her around, but she had been very quiet and mostly ignored people as she sat by herself near the command and control station. As much as she didn’t like the woman, Freya was a bit worried about the sergeant.

BT was also acting weird. He was skittish and twitchy. Freya had tried to talk to him, but he just told her that he was fine. She hoped he was okay, but knew he wasn’t. The captain had originally put him on the mission, but Freya had taken her boss aside and warned her that she didn’t think he was up to the mission. Thompson apparently agreed with her as BT was sitting the mission out. What worried Freya was that he seemed relieved not to go out with them. He was normally a gung ho marine. For him not to be mad at missing a mission was a big red flag.

“Three seconds to first drop.” Fred told them. Freya turned back to look out at the gray ground below her. “Two seconds. One. Green. Go. Go. Go.”

Freya jumped forward off the ramp with Monkeyman following her, letting the wind pull her forward. She had a brief glimpse of Cannon and Lurch still on the ramp as she fell away from them. She saw the undercarriage of the dropship as it flew away from her. She could see the huge holes in its side as the ship flew away from her. She couldn’t see inside of the ship even though the holes were huge. All she saw was blackness when she looked at them. She adjusted herself so the wind grabbed her and flipped her over as she fell towards the ground.

Time seemed to slow down as she got into position and the ground came up towards her. Then she hit the ground and started rolling as she was trained. The world turned into a swirl of colors as she slowed herself down. Then her instincts screamed at her. She had a flash of black color as she rolled over something and that something exploded out of the ground.

She had no time to think as she followed her instincts and yanked out her knife. The black thing was on her. It hit her chest and sent her rolling again. She flinched sideways as something came down from the black thing and it too started rolling with her. She slashed out and felt the knife hit something. Not even a second later something hit her armor, but she didn’t feel any pain so ignored it.

Then she was on top of the thing and she jammed the knife downards as gravity pulled her onward. She felt a jarring and the knife slipped, turning sideways. She didn’t have time to curse as she saw a ball of backness come crashing downward onto her chest. She felt all the air escape out of her as she folded over the thing. Then the thing was pulled off her as she continued to roll. She reached down to grab something, but whatever the thing was it was slick and hard. As she rolled on top of the thing her fingers found a crease and moments later she jammed her knife into it.

She felt the knife scrape on something as it went in. Then they rolled so that the thing was rolling upwards on top of her. She looked up and for a brief second she saw a triangular head with two big eyes that were the size of her fists looking down at her. It oddly looked like an ant head, but without the antennae. The head seemed to slip open and a thin mouth opened up. The mouth, she noted, had a lot of rows of teeth. The thing shot down at her, hitting her in the chest again. It tried to bite her, but it was pulled away as Freya started to roll over it coming out on top of it.

The entire time Freya’s knife was buried in it. It had dug deeper into the thing, but if the thing felt pain it didn’t show it. Freya yanked the knife upwards, following the crease in the thing. The thing responded by biting Freya in the shoulder, but her armor took the hit and Freya didn’t feel anything except some pressure as it tried to penetrate her armor.

Freya was still trying to yank the knife upwards when they hit something and they both went flying. Freya lost hold of her knife as she found herself flying to the right of the thing. She kept her eyes on it as she hit the ground again. Instead of rolling again she hit the ground wrong and her shoulder dug into the hard-packed dirt. She came to a sudden stop as the thing rolled past her.

Freya blindly pulled her pistol off her waist even as she ignored the pain in her left shoulder. She rolled onto her belly as the black ant-looking thing rolled to stop. She raised her right hand and quickly sighted in on the thing. She pulled the trigger and the weird triangle head jerked backwards as the explosive round hit it. She pulled the trigger again when she noted that it didn’t penetrate the armored shell. The next two shots hit the head making it rock backwards then the third round penetrated.

She pulled the trigger again as the back of the thing's head exploded outwards with pieces of its armored head flying out of the exit wound. Freya pulled the trigger a couple more times as the head disintegrated and parts exploded off of it. She kept pulling the trigger until the gun clicked empty. She sat up and pulled an ammo rod out of her pouch and slammed it into the bottom of her gun, watching the thing the entire time. The thing never moved. She slowly stood up, ignoring the flashing yellow on her HUD as she kept her gun trained on the thing. It was only after she had taken a few steps towards that she slowly lowered her pistol. The thing's head was mostly gone from her explosive rounds, and black liquid was leaking from it.

“Magic, you okay?” Monkeyman asked over the radio.

“Yeah.” Freya muttered as she pulled out a medi pen from a pouch on her belt.

She slotted the medi pen into her chest and closed the little panel. She felt the icy feeling flash through her body as the medicine went to work. She noted that the pain in her shoulder dimmed a bit, but didn’t go away. The yellow warning lights on her HUD stopped blinking, but they remained yellow, at least for the moment. A quick glance at her health bar on her HUD showed it at eighty percent and slowly rising. She rolled her shoulder and noted that, while it still hurt, she had full range of motion.

“Did you just land on the spy construct?” He asked her as she came up next to her.

“Yeah, I think so.” Freya told him as she pulled out the empty medi pen and put it back in her pouch. She noted that he wasn’t looking at her, but at the dead looking ant-like thing.

“Your luck sucks.” He told her, still not looking at her. “That’s new.”

“Looks like an ant.” She said as she pulled her rifle off her back and held it across the insides of her elbows.

He chuckled. “Yeah. Except that it’s, like, four feet tall.”

Freya chuckled and nodded.

“These things are going to be hard to kill.” He told her. “We're going to have to force them suckers out of the ground if we want to kill them.”

“Hopefully that won’t be too big of a problem.” She said and looked around at the empty desert around them. “Come on, let's go hunting.”

“So badass.” Monkeyman replied, shaking his head as he fell in behind her.

It took them thirty minutes to find another spy construct. In that time the yellow warning lights on her HUD faded away and her health bar topped itself off. It didn’t go back to a hundred percent but stopped at ninety-eight percent. She was just grateful that the pain faded away.

Monkeyman crawled beside her as she zoomed in on the black circle that was poking out of the ground. “A hundred feet out, no wind or elevation.” He told her after he spotted the construct.

“Uh-huh.” Freya replied as she mostly ignored him. Her scope already told her all that information.

“You ready?” She asked him as she set her crosshairs on the target.

“Yup.” He replied, sounding excited.

She didn’t look at him, trusting him at his word. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out as she pulled gently on the trigger, making sure that the pad of her trigger finger was on the trigger and not the crease of her finger. She pulled the trigger back and felt the vibration that told her that the gun had fired. The beam from her rifle struck the disk-like thing and tore a hole down its center.

“Hit.” Monkeyman said unnecessarily.

The construct exploded out of the ground and spun back and forth looking for them. She was already pulling the trigger when there was a flash of light and the construct exploded. The bazooka must have hit the thing in its chest just above its waist because it was literally torn in half. Freya let go of her trigger and rested it above, on the barrel itself.  She watched through her scope as the thing wiggled for a few seconds before it went still.

“Hit.” She said sarcastically after it stopped moving. Beside her, Monkeyman chuckled.

“So. Why did you join the Marines?” Monkeyman asked her, fifteen minutes later. Freya was leading him to the next grid in their search for spy constructs.

“All the other Amazons got jealous, and kicked me off the island.” Freya told him. He chuckled. “What's up? Jealous you didn’t land on a construct?”

“Nah, just feeling weird.” He told her. “You see BT? I think he’s done. Not that I blame him. I mean if your soul got yanked out of your body it would mess you up.”

“You saw his soul get yanked out?” Freya asked, surprised.

“Nah. Saw the purple tentacle you shot.” He told her. “That was crazy. Hey, if you ever see something reach for me like that, can you, like, kill it before my soul gets sucked down whatever gullet that thing had?”

“Gullet?” Freya asked,amused.

“I'm serious.” Monkeyman said, sounding freaked. “I want my soul to go to heaven, not spend eternity in some alien’s belly.”

“First, you really think you’re going to go to heaven?” She asked, trying not to laugh. “And second, it doesn’t eat it. It just fades after it gets pulled out.”

“You know, I wasn’t religious before this.” Monkeyman told her. “I was like, if you need religion, then that’s cool, but now I know souls are real. If you follow that logic, then the afterlife is real.”

“Not really.” Freya told him. “It just might mean that after you die, your soul just fades away.”

“You believe that?” Monkeyman asked her.

“Honestly, I don’t know.” Freya told him “I try not to think about it.”

“I can’t stop thinking about it.” Monkeyman admitted. “My mom is a big believer in Tom. I grew up going to the services, but I never really believed in it, you know. Now, it’s kind of freaking me out.”

“Why does it matter?” Freya asked him. “Be good and get rewarded. Be bad and get to burn for the rest of eternity. Or not. Live a good life and, if he or she is real, then cool. If not, then it really doesn’t matter except you left the world just a bit better than it was before you were born. Or, at least, no worse than it was before you were born.”

“God and the afterlife go hand in hand together.” Monkeyman told her, sounding exasperated. “If one exists then the other has to.”

“Okay. Then what’s got you all tangled up?” Freya asked him as she scanned the horizon with her eyes, looking for the telltale signs of a spy construct.

“That god is real.” Monkeyman told her. His tone made it clear that he was upset.

“Did you see a soul?” Freya asked him. “What if I was lying and there was no soul? Or what if what I saw is not the soul, but an after-image of the person dying. What if what I saw was my mind trying to make sense of something I have no understanding of? We don’t know what I saw. It might not be what we think it is.”

“Maybe.” Monkeyman replied.

“Try not to think about it.” Freya advised him after a few seconds. She knew she wasn’t going to help him no matter what she said. She wasn’t even sure what she saw.

“We’re here to kill the Ketica and their toys. Let's just do that.” She told him.

“Yeah. Okay.” Monkeyman replied softly, not sounding like he was letting it go.

“I can’t wait for this mission to be over.” She told him after a few minutes. “I’m gonna get so drunk when I get back none of this will matter.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.” Monkeyman told her, sounding excited. She wasn’t sure if he was faking it or not, but she had nothing else to cheer him up, so she left it alone.

Ten hours later and Freya was stumbling forward. She was exhausted, but they were finally at the last waypoint where the dropship should be. They had sent the entire day finding and killing the spy constructs. It had been surprisingly easy. She would take the first shot to get them to jump out of the ground, and Monkeyman would kill them with his bazooka.

The only time it got hard was near the end when he ran out of ammo for the thing. Then they had to shoot them until they died. It wasn’t that much harder, because the stupid things never ran away. They just charged at them after they popped up out of the ground.

They also didn’t talk about religion or what Freya saw. They kept their conversation light, but Freya could see it was still bugging him. She was not sure why it didn’t bug her. She just didn’t think it mattered. If the thing she saw was the soul then it really didn’t change anything for her. Live a good life and, if the afterlife was real, then you would go to heaven. She knew that some religions spoke about believing in God being a caveat to go to heaven. She just didn’t think it would matter to a supreme being, if there was one. It also didn’t matter to her.

“Magic, I got you on my sensors.” Fred said suddenly out of the blue on the radio. “Come on in and get some rest. We’re bunking down under the ship.”

“Roger that.” Freya replied, increasing her walking speed. A few minutes later she spotted the ship in the distance. Twenty minutes later, she walked into the active camo shield of the ship. She and Monkeyman walked up to where a bunch of people were sacked out and sleeping. She curled up near the landing strut and was asleep as soon as she closed her eyes.

She was woken up hours later by com traffic on the team’s talk around channel between Monekyman and Lurch about religion. Lurch apparently was a die hard Tom follower and he sounded smug that Monkeyman was questioning his beliefs.

Freya groaned on the channel, and the two stopped. Knowing she wasn’t going to be able to sleep after that, she got up and went to find Sergeant Kruz to see if she needed help. The sergeant, when she found her, was inside the ship with a repair gun. She was currently filling in a hole with a metal compound that would seal off the hole and make the inside airtight and space-worthy.

“Find a gun and fix the ship.” The sergeant told her. “We got word that the October is on their final approach. Should be here in two days. The captain wants this ready so we can head back and rearm.”

“We coming back down, afterwards?” Freya asked as she went to a nearby locker and keyed up a repair gun with the right ingredients.

The screen was blinking red telling her that she had less than one percent of printer fluid left. She did note that she still had full tanks of BatK fluid. She switched screens and pulled up respawn times on all the marines who had access to the pods. There was a long list of names with ‘data corrupted’ next to them. There wasn’t a single person who didn’t have the label next to their name.

She quickly exited out of the page, pulled the repair gun from the printer and got to work. An hour or so later, Captain Thompson called her over the radio, asking to meet with her. Freya was on top of the dropship repairing a small hole near what was left of the artillery cannon. The hole was about the size of her fist and went right through the armor planting and into the pod bay in the ship.

“I’m on top of the ship doing some repairs. Do you want me now or do I have enough time to finish it?” She asked her boss.

“How long will it take? I need you and Cannon out killing more spy constructs. The militia still hasn’t reached the waystation yet, and I’m getting a bit paranoid. There have been no sightings of any constructs near us or them since the battle.” Captain Thompson told her.

“Ten minutes?” Freya replied as she continued pushing the quick drying metal out of her gun.

“That’s fine. As soon as you’re done, I need you out killing them.” The Captain replied.

“Understood.” Freya told her boss.

“Monkeyman, we got a job.” Freya said switching over to his private channel. “The Captain wants us out killing more spy constructs. We leave in ten.”

“Sounds fun.” He told her, sounding better than he had the day before. She then keyed over to Cannon’s private channel.

“Hey Cannon, you hear our new orders?” She asked her old team leader.

“Yeah. We’re leaving in a few.” Cannon replied. “I’m setting waypoints for both of us. You go west and we’ll go east. We’ll circle clockwise about two miles from the ship. If we are still out there when we reach each other's starting point then we move in a half a mile and do it again. We will keep doing it until we are either called back or make sure that there aren't any constructs near the ship.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Freya tol her. “I’m finishing up on this repair job and then we’ll head out.”

“Roger that.” Came the reply.

Freya finished the job and met up with Monkeyman, who had rearmed. They left out on their patrol not long afterwards. They circled the ship at two miles, just as Cannon planned it. Then they moved in a half mile and did it again. They repeated the patrol until they got within five hundred feet of the ship. The captain called them back after that. The militia had finally made it back to the waystation. She was still worried though. There was still no enemy movement near them.

Thompson gave them a few hours rest before sending them back out to spiral away from the ship looking for more targets. They spent the rest of the day and much of the following day on patrol before being called back by the captain. The October was inbound and the invasion was slated to kick off that evening. The first landing was scheduled for on the far side of the planet. Then there would be more landings all around the planet. They had been ordered to return to the October as soon as they spotted troops making landfall.

Freya was on her way back to the dropship when the attack started. She was walking with her head down when flashes of light made her look upwards. The October started its attack run by taking out the constructs around the planet which had been scouted by their platoon before they had landed. By the time she had made it back to the ship, the October had started its bombardment of the surface. She only saw one attack, out past the horizon. There was a bright light then the ground shook. She didn’t see what the October was aiming at, nor did she see what it hit. All she saw was that flash of light and felt the ground shake.

She joined everyone else in the back of the dropship when she got back and they waited for the invasion to start. Freya hung around near the command and control station and watched the live feeds from the October as the Federation Marines started to drop all around the globe. Then it was time for them to leave. Fred stayed on as the pilot because no one wanted to chance that there was a denial sphere close by.

The flight to the October was quiet with no problems. It was so smooth that Freya checked in a few times via her tablet and her Personal AI. It was weird to see so many OTIDS flying in the opposite direction as the dropship. They got an escort from a flight of close support ships from the atmosphere to the ship which Freya found kind of cool. Freya watched as Fred flew into a hangar and set down. It was only then that they were allowed to despawn.

Freya was never so glad to be able to take her turn in the pod to despawn. She closed the pod door and shut her eyes. A second later she opened them, finding herself in the platoon’s pod bay in their camp. At first she was feeling that after mission high, but that faded when she stepped out of the pod and realized just how few of them made it back to the ship. It was cold and dark in that pod bay as most of the pods were on standby without any lights.

They didn’t have any orders, so the surviving members of the Honey Badgers equipped their working uniforms and left for the barracks. Sergeant Kruz, their new platoon leader, left without a backwards glance at them. Fred took charge and told them to get some rest and new orders would be coming as soon as they got them. Then he left as well. Monkeyman’s gang left together and made their way towards the barracks. Freya found her room and stripped out of her uniform and, even though she wasn’t tired, she went to bed. To her surprise, she fell asleep not long after her head hit the pillow.